Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Shaun Rowan-Popoff
Senior Vice President of Marketing at Green Dot Corporation
Unlocking Customer Value: The Role of Relationships and Advocacy in a World of Changing Consumer Behaviour and Generative AI
About Shaun Rowan-Popoff
Shaun Rowan-Popoff is the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Green Dot Corporation, a fintech company providing banking solutions for low to moderate income consumers as well as embedded financial services for companies. Shaun has over 25 years of experience in marketing, including retail, promotions, toy, entertainment, and video games. She made a career switch over 7 years ago to take her marketing skills into the world of banking with Green Dot.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by lifecycle marketing and how it supports customer acquisition through retention?
Lifecycle marketing involves communication through various digital channels like email, SMS, and push notifications to convert and engage customers throughout their journey with us. It's structured into different phases depending on where the customer is, like onboarding, nurturing, and cross-sell. Messaging is tailored to behaviors - for example, customers on direct deposit go into a separate stream with specific content. The goal is to activate accounts, encourage deposits, educate on features, and offer promotions. So it bridges the gap between acquiring and retaining customers, with metrics tied to each message and phase. We're educating through feature tutorials, cross-selling additional financial products, and communicating discounts or perks to loyal long-term customers. It's an ecosystem of content keeping the customer actively engaged with key services.
Why is direct deposit such an important indicator of a valuable customer in this industry? How does Green Dot reward direct deposit customers?
Direct deposit represents a guaranteed, consistent deposit into the account, providing more certainty for us. These customers instantly unlock more features like overdraft protection, early access to paychecks, and special credit building programs. It's the gateway to increased engagement and lifetime value. We market heavily to drive direct deposit sign-ups and track cross-selling of additional services.
Can you explain how you acquire customers that may have inconsistent employment and income streams?
We offer two distinct channels for customers to obtain debit cards:
1. Retail Channel: Customers can walk into 100,000+ retail locations nationwide to immediately purchase a card, deposit funds, and activate it for instant use. This serves as a bank account with routing and account numbers they can leverage right away after activating a temporary card and before getting a personalized card mailed later to unlock more features. We drive retail acquisition through in-store promotions, circulars, and national TV ads.
2. Online Channel: We utilize performance marketing across search, social, display to drive online applications where customers can sign up for a debit card account. This allows us to track applications generated by our online advertising efforts.
The retail channel provides instant physical card access for those needing immediate use, while the online channel allows scaling card acquisitions through direct advertising and tracked applications. By reducing friction to accessible bank accounts and usage, we better serve those with unstable incomes even if their funds fluctuate week-to-week.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities to leverage AI within marketing over the next few years?
AI is invaluable for optimizing messaging across channels and predicting customer behavior. I see huge potential to enhance content development - powering creative ideation and theme generation for campaigns and engagement. It can facilitate personalization and improve targeting for lifecycle communications through optimizing messaging effectiveness. And as we better understand changing needs of underbanked groups through richer analytics, AI can help ensure relevancy in our outreach. I'd also utilize AI more in web experience testing - optimizing page layouts and journeys to increase activations and retention. With tighter feedback loops, AI makes experimentation rapid and insights actionable.
What are the most important elements in ensuring AI complements rather than replaces human connections with customers?
AI should enhance, not assume. It augments human capabilities versus replacing them. Particularly in marketing, creativity and empathy remain distinctly human skills. But AI can spark new ideas to connect with customers. Implementation is key - AI can't be "set and forget." We must continually audit impact on experience. If poorly managed, it damages perceived rapport and authenticity. But properly honed, AI will make communications more relatable. The human role is oversight - checking AI is strengthening, not straining connections. We know our customers best - AI simply helps us engage better.
What tools or technologies would you like to see improved or implemented to advance your advocacy and loyalty efforts?
We actively track brand perception and NPS for advocacy metrics. There is an opportunity to more deeply connect referral activity to NPS in order to yield more interesting insights on brand sentiment. Overall, tools to enrich data collection around loyalty and endorsements using advanced analytics can uncover more actionable insights from underbanked groups often overlooked. Better tech would provide a more robust profile of these customers to drive relevance. I'd want solutions providing a deeper understanding of lifetime behaviors and predictive drivers to mold stronger emotional ties and affinity.
Green Dot Corporation is a financial technology and bank holding company focused on providing seamless banking solutions to consumers and partners. Based in Austin, Texas, Green Dot operates a branchless bank and manages a suite of financial products and services that are accessible online and in major retail stores across the US. Through its flagship products like Green Dot and GO2bank, as well as banking services embedded into platforms such as Apple, Uber, and Walmart, Green Dot aims to provide accessible, low-cost banking options to people of all income levels on a large scale. The company has been a pioneer in the fintech industry since its founding in 1999.
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